Short Abstract

Through the work of early women activists, Ishimoto Shizue and Yamada Waka, this paper traces the (re)production of global population concerns (jinkō mondai) within discourse on birth control during the Taishō Era.

Long Abstract

This paper explores the work of early 20th century Japanese women activists to reveal the inherent relationship between burgeoning population concerns (jinkō mondai) and discourse about birth control. It highlights the diversity of opinion within the women's movement and Japanese social reformers more broadly. It also brings forth the global exchanges, adaptions and reconfigurations of discourse which gave population concerns their long-lasting power. Through this, I contribute a feminist science studies approach to modern Japanese history.

Ishimoto and Yamada held distinctly contrasting perspectives about birth control. Despite this, both women's understanding of the concept, practice and technology was imbued with population politics. My research examines untranslated essays, articles and books published in the wake of World War I to show the diversity of opinion on birth control in Japan. Their ideas are positioned within a vivid landscape of domestic and transnational issues including war, immigration, colonialism and poverty. The problematisation of population within this lively discourse laid the foundations for its' continued entanglement with reproductive rights and health in Japan to this day. It is ultimately revealing of the deep impact population politics has had on the outcomes of contraceptive advocacy and access to reproductive care for all women, regardless of positioning within sex, race and class hierarchies.

My analysis deploys the intersectional lens first conceptualised by Black American feminists to tease out the discursive stratification of bodies within Ishimoto and Yamada's discussion of birth control. Shifting across these temporal and spatial layers constructed by dialogue on reproductive rights and health, I argue that conceptualising population has been inextricable from birth control discourse. The paper highlights the necessity of critically dissecting narratives through which knowledge about birth control has been produced, communicated and contested. Globally, intensifying anti-migration sentiments reveal the prevailing nature of neomalthusian narratives about overpopulation and resource scarcity. It is thus more critical than ever to examine the gendered discourses which have shaped the biopolitical mechanisms concealed in our current conditions.